CO controller for a boiler

ABSTRACT

A CO controller is used in a boiler (e.g. those that are used in power generation), which has a theoretical maximum thermal efficiency when the combustion is exactly stoichiometric. The objective is to control excess oxygen (XSO2) so that the CO will be continually on the “knee” of the CO vs. XSO2 curve.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e) to provisional application No. 60/731,155 filed on Oct. 27, 2005 titled “CO Controller for a Boiler.”

FIELD

The invention relates to boilers, and, more particularly, to closed loop carbon monoxide controllers for boilers.

BACKGROUND

Boilers (e.g. those that are used in power generation) have a theoretical maximum thermal efficiency when the combustion is exactly stoichiometric. This will result in the best overall heat rate for the generator. However, in practice, boilers are run “lean”; i.e., excess air is used, which lowers flame temperatures and creates an oxidizing atmosphere which is conducive to slagging (further reducing thermal efficiency). Ideally the combustion process is run as close to stoichiometric as practical, without the mixture becoming too rich. A rich mixture is potentially dangerous by causing “backfires”. The objective is to control excess oxygen (XSO2) so that the CO will be continually on the “knee” of the CO vs. XSO2 curve.

SUMMARY

A method for computing an excess oxygen setpoint for a combustion process in real time is described.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows an example of a CO vs. XSO2 curve.

DESCRIPTION

One objective is to control excess oxygen (XSO2) so that the CO will be continually on the “knee” of the CO vs. XSO2 curve. This will result in the best overall heat rate for the generator. The basic theory behind this premise is that maximum thermal efficiency occurs when the combustion is exactly stoichiometric. However, in practice boilers are run “lean”; i.e., excess air is used, lowering flame temperatures, and creating an oxidizing atmosphere which is close to stoichiometric as practical, without the mixture becoming too rich, potentially becoming dangerous by causing “backfires”.

The “knee” of the curve is defined where the slope of the curve is fairly steep. Users can select the slope to be either aggressive or conservative. A “steep” slope is very aggressive (closer to stoichiometric), a “shallow” slope is more conservative (leaner burn).

In most cases, operators run the boilers at very low or nearly zero CO. This is to prevent “puffing” in the lower sections of the economizer.

FIG. 1 shows an example of a CO vs. XSO2 curve. Shown are a power law curve 102 of CO vs XSO2 and real time data 104. The x-axis is the percentage of XSO2. The y-axis is CO in ppm.

This document describes how to run the combustion process under closed loop control to achieve best heat rate under all loading conditions and large variations in coal quality. The method is as follows:

One embodiment using the power law curves is described. The invention is not limited to power law curves. First, in real time, compute the power law curve 102 of CO vs XSO2. An example is shown in FIG. 1. This is done in a moving window of real time data 104, typically the last 30 minutes of operating data. Filtering of the data 104 may be applied during the fitting process. A moving window maximum likelihood fitting process may be used to create the coefficients in the power law curve fit. This method works for any type of fitted function.

Second, an operator selects a slope target. For example, −300 ppm CO/XSO2 may be used. With this exemplary setting, for each one percent reduction in O2 there will be an increase in CO of 300 ppm.

Third, at each calculation interval, the best setpoint of O2 is determined by solving the first derivative power law curve, for the selected “derivative.” This becomes the new setpoint for the O2 controller. In the case where the fitted curve is not differentiable analytically, the derivative can be found by convention numerical differentiation.

Fourth, the sensitivity analyses are done on the alpha and beta coefficients.

Using the data shown in FIG. 1, an exemplary power law fit is given by: y=αx^(β)  Eq. 1 dy/dx=γ=γ=αβx ^(β−1)  Eq. 2 where α=1458.2, β=−1.5776, y=CO, x=XSO2, and γ is the slope of the power law curve. For any value of slope, there is a unique value of x.

These parameters are estimated using CO and XSO2 data in the moving window. The window could be typically from about 5 minutes to one hour. The formulation is as follows: ln(y)=ln(α)+β ln(x)  Eq. 3

Let p₁=ln(α), p₂=β, z(t)=ln(y(t)), and w(t)=ln(x(t)), where t=time. We will have the values of x and y at time t=0, t=−1, t=−2, . . . , t=−n, where n is the number of past samples used in the moving window. Then we can write the following equations: z(0)=1*p ₁ +w(0)*p ₂ z(−1)=1*p ₁ +w(−1)*p₂ z(−n)=1*p ₁ +w(−n)*p ₂  Eqs. 4

These may be written in vector matrix notation as follows: z=Ap  Eq. 5 where the A matrix is a (n×2) matrix as follows: ${A = \begin{bmatrix} 1 & {w(0)} \\ 1 & {w\left( {- 1} \right)} \\ 1 & {w\left( {- 2} \right)} \\ \vdots & \vdots \\ 1 & {w\left( {- n} \right)} \end{bmatrix}},{and}$ p is a vector as shown below: $p = \begin{bmatrix} p_{1} \\ p_{2} \end{bmatrix}$

The solution is: {circumflex over (p)}=[A ^(T) A] ⁻¹ A ^(T) z  Eq. 6

The resulting parameters are: {circumflex over (α)}=exp({circumflex over (p)} ₁)  Eq. 7 {circumflex over (β)}={circumflex over (p)}₂  Eq. 8

The control equation is found by solving Eq.2 for the value of x, resulting in: $\begin{matrix} {x_{T} = \left( \frac{\alpha\beta}{\gamma} \right)^{(\frac{1}{1 - \beta})}} & {{Eq}.\quad 9} \end{matrix}$

We next look at the sensitivity of x_(t). The total derivative is written as: $\begin{matrix} {{\Delta\quad x_{T}} = {{\left\lbrack {\left( \frac{\alpha}{\beta} \right)^{(\frac{1}{1 - \beta})} + {\left( \frac{1}{1 - \beta} \right)\left( \frac{\alpha\beta}{\gamma} \right)^{(\frac{\beta}{1 - \beta})}}} \right\rbrack{\delta\beta}} + {\left( \frac{\beta}{\gamma} \right)^{(\frac{1}{1 - \beta})}{\delta\alpha}}}} & {{Eq}.\quad 10} \end{matrix}$

Thus for any variation in the parameters, one can calculate in advance the effect on the target XSO2. Thus for every change in the computed parameters, the sensitivity equation is used to determine the effect on the new proposed XSO2 setpoint.

For the data shown in FIG. 1, and a value of γ=−500, the optimal setpoint of XSO2 is 1.8 percent.

Note: one aspect of the invention is that the “now” value of CO may not be directly used to find the best XSO2 setpoint, rather the past n values of CO and XSO2. This is unique compared to other systems that have been used for control of CO.

It will be apparent to one skilled in the art that the described embodiments may be altered in many ways without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the scope of the invention should be determined by the following claims and their equivalents. 

1. A method of controlling excess oxygen in a combustion process, the method comprising: computing in real time a parametric curve for excess oxygen versus carbon monoxide; calculating a maximum efficiency point on the curve that maximizes thermal efficiency of the combustion process; and adjusting an excess oxygen setpoint of the combustion process based on the maximum efficiency point on the parametric curve.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: collecting excess oxygen and carbon monoxide concentration measurements in a moving window data store, where the computation of the parametric curve uses the moving window data store.
 3. The method of claim 2, further comprising calculating a sensitivity to parameters of the parametric curve based on the moving window data store.
 4. The method of claim 2, where the moving window data store records data for a time range between 5 and 60 minutes.
 5. The method of claim 1, where the combustion process uses carbon based fuel.
 6. The method of claim 5, where the carbon based fuel is from a group consisting of coal, natural gas, oil, hog fuel, grass, and animal waste.
 7. The method of claim 1, where a first derivative of the parametric curve is used to determine to an optimal excess oxygen setpoint.
 8. The method of claim 7, derivative computed analytically.
 9. The method of claim 7, derivative computed numerically. 